{"id":8945,"date":"2017-11-16T22:47:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T03:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/?p=8945"},"modified":"2017-11-16T22:47:27","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T03:47:27","slug":"climatologist-suggests-midwesterners-shouldnt-ignore-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/archives\/8945","title":{"rendered":"Climatologist suggests Midwesterners shouldn\u2019t ignore climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Seeley\"by Rachael Arnts, Mitch Kellogg–<\/strong>A century\u2019s worth of data suggests the climate is changing and that several American sectors are facing a new normal.<\/p>\n

On his farewell tour before retirement, Mark Seeley, a climatologist, professor, and Minnesota public media personality, shared his data to prove that the climate change is related to agriculture and religion in America.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re already in the process of reacting to climate change,\u201d stated Seeley.<\/p>\n

Seeley had three main objectives: Evidence in Climate Change, Agricultural Impacts, and Faith Perspectives and Reactions.<\/p>\n

Seeley is a respected climatologist who hosts his own radio show in the Twin Cities. The title of his presentation was \u201cClimate Change, Agriculture and Religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also known as the \u201cMeasurements Guy,\u201d Seeley collects historical weather data and analyzes trends to help predict the future. With his data he was able to conclude which states were seeing a rise in temperature and precipitation. The minimum temperatures in the Midwest are rising. It is now harder to determine what the average temperature is for a particular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media frames things in a normal context. The base reference is changing so there is no normal,\u201d Seeley explained.<\/p>\n

Transitioning to the agriculture sector, Seeley gave many examples of how the climate is affecting farmers. For example, with temperatures allowing longer growing seasons, there are now more varieties in corn and soybeans. The downside is that there are now more crop diseases.<\/p>\n

Another concern is soil lost due to the precipitation rates and the number of storms we receive here in Iowa that produce over two inches of rain. Rainfall has increased for the last fifty years.<\/p>\n

To transition into his final point, Seeley referenced the Bible: \u201cWe are stewards of the land.\u201d Seeley then added, \u201cThere is a moral and spiritual side to climate change. It\u2019s not all about science. It\u2019s about who we are and what we believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeley stressed that conservation is an ethic and putting people\u2019s health at risk is not a moral. These beliefs led to the first ever faith-based discussion on climate change at a national convention last year.<\/p>\n

He asks that\u00a0people of faith be selfless in action, and that taking care of the planet and giving the children of our world a better tomorrow is the ultimate way to be a steward of this “big blue pill” we can call home.<\/p>\n

For his concluding remarks Seeley said, \u201cI think we planted a seed at the national meeting. The evidence is very hard to dismiss and deny. Whether you take a secular or religious perspective, it is clearly poor judgment to ignore this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UPS Auditorium was limited to standing- room- only as students, professors, and members of the public crammed in. The vast majority of the crowd was there for a class, but the students received complements from Seeley on how engaged they all seemed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was weird that Florida seems to be getting warmer and the states by it were getting cooler,\u201d commented Ben Bruyer in reference to a temperature map of the United States that was shown during the presentsation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chart that showed the recent upward swoop of [natural] catastrophes was very interesting,\u201d commented Karissa Heckens. \u201cIt\u2019s also interesting that this climate situation affects so many different sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rachael Arnts, Mitch Kellogg–A century\u2019s worth of data suggests the climate is changing and that several American sectors are facing a new normal. On his farewell tour before retirement, Mark Seeley, a climatologist, professor, and Minnesota public media personality, shared his data to prove that the climate change is related to agriculture and religion…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":8946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8947,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8945\/revisions\/8947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}